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My Hood to Coast van killed 46 people this morning. Not literally, obviously.

One thing I learned today: you pass a runner, it’s a kill. You mark it on the window for bragging rights.
(If you get passed, it’s not really worth mentioning.)

There’s an etiquette to passing, it turns out. You give the person you passed a “nice job runner,” or, if you’re feeling especially generous, you blow them a kiss.

Never, ever say “cha-CHING” when you pass somebody. That’s for high school kids.

A few other things I picked up:

Don’t wear the race T-shirt you picked up beforehand until the race is over. It’s bad karma otherwise.

There’s no shame in walking.

You can never have too many cowbells in the van.

It’s interesting to see how fired up everybody who’s participating in the race is as compared to how grumpy everybody who lives along the route is. Don’t get me wrong – I have lots of friends and family who live on the Coast, and I know this weekend is an absolute mess for them.

So, it’s kind of strange watching this rolling army of chaos having a blast s it slowly make its descent.
Anyway, things are going well so far. Our van finished at 1:16 p.m., which was about was about 20 minutes ahead of schedule. I don’t want to jinx things, but things are going extremely smoothly so far. (With the exception of a couple of runner exchanges that made little sense.)

“Gravity was on our side – it was all downhill,” said Sarah Yardley. ” It’s the first leg – aka the honeymoon stage.”